Some time today or tomorrow, I will receive a phone call that will — or won’t — change my life. It’s not often you reach a juncture where you know that what just happened, or what happens next, is life changing. But today or tomorrow, a nurse (or possibly a doctor) will call, and let me know if I have a bad tonsil (since removed) — or something worse. I will either go forward with healing (just FYI: adult tonsillectomies suck) or make a different set of plans.

That’s kind of humbling, if you think about it. And it makes the passage of time quite different. A definitely ‘altered’ state…It makes the tumble I took in the garden hose no less painful (you should see my goose egg!), but it’s still the whole interlude state-of-mind that I wrote about previously.

Once, many years ago, I stood in front of a wall of glass, watching a plane depart. I knew even as it left that my life would be irrevocably changed because we couldn’t catch it. Even a week later, after working w/ national authorities to have my elder son airlifted w/ others out of a war zone, life was not the same. Ripples from that missed plane kept me from joining my husband, sent me back to graduate school, turned me (ultimately) into a teacher… The after-effects are large. Had I caught the plane? No telling, but that life would not have been this one.

And that’s what I tell myself today, as the phone doesn’t ring. By now, it probably won’t. Tomorrow. Tomorrow is soon enough. This moment is okay ~

Britton Gildersleeve

Britton Gildersleeve is a 'third culture kid.' Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks ‘without,’ as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She’s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. She is (still) working on her beginner's heart ~